


Consolation Prize

by arliddian



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pining, Reader Needs a Hug, Reader-Insert, Romance, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arliddian/pseuds/arliddian
Summary: You know that there will only ever be room for one woman in Steve’s heart: the proof is in the compass he always carries with him. But when he comes to you one night, lonely and lost, you find yourself offering him a little physical comfort—and eventually, it becomes a regular arrangement.You keep giving him what he needs and taking what you can get—but is it enough? Will you ever have what you really want? Will you ever be more than just his consolation prize?
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 12
Kudos: 234





	Consolation Prize

It’s late when you finally finish going over the new mods to your gear with Tony—you have no idea why you let him set the time for the meeting when he keeps such random hours. You leave him tinkering in the workshop and impatiently hit the button for the elevator, rubbing a hand across your forehead to try and ward against the headache you always get when he rapid-fires technical jargon at you. You’re more than ready to head back up to your suite and collapse into your bed.

The elevator doors finally glide open and your heart skips a beat when you see that Steve is already standing inside. He’s wearing his street clothes, and you surmise that he’s just returned from some outing away from the Tower. It’s clear that he’s been lost in thought—he startles at the opening doors and you catch a glimpse of something small and round in his hand before he shoves it into his jacket pocket.

Your heart gives another spasm. You know what that object is and what it means. You’ve seen him pull it out of the pouch on his belt and gaze at it during quieter moments on the quinjet when he thinks nobody’s looking. You’ve heard the story. The compass, his north star; Peggy Carter and the life Steve should have lived. The physical proof that there will only ever be room for one woman in his heart. 

As you step inside, you swallow down the bitter longing clawing its way up your throat with practised ease. After three years of friendship, you’re an expert at hiding your feelings for him behind a smile. He’s already heading to the residential floor, so you lean against the wall as the doors slide shut and glance over at him. He looks troubled, his handsome features touched with a subtle sadness that brings an ache to your chest.

“Are you okay?” you ask quietly.

In an instant, he smooths it all away with a faint smile. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve never been a great liar, Steve.” You raise an eyebrow pointedly at him. “What’s wrong?”

His shoulders lift slightly in a dismissive shrug. “I was just… thinking about some things,” he says blandly, but you can tell that whatever those ‘things’ are, they’re weighing heavily on him. You hate seeing him like this. He carries so much on his shoulders already; all you want is to help him bear the load.

The elevator reaches its destination and the doors glide open again. Ever the gentleman, he waits to let you walk through first, but as soon as you’re clear of the doors, you turn to him and say gently, “You look like you could use a little less thinking and a little more talking.” You jerk your head in the direction of your suite. “Come on.”

You sense his uncertainty, and you’re not surprised—he’s never been one to willingly let other people share in his burdens, always so determined to carry them alone. But after a beat, he silently follows you down the hallway. The relative lack of hesitance tells you that he must really need a friend right now, and you feel a rush of warmth from the knowledge that he trusts you to be his confidant.

You tell him to make himself comfortable as you walk over to the sideboard. He takes a seat on your sofa, watching as you retrieve a bottle of scotch and pour out a couple of glasses. When you hand him one, he raises an eyebrow at you. 

“I know this won’t affect you at all, but it feels appropriate,” you tell him with a wry shrug as you sit down beside him and take a sip from your own glass. 

He contemplates the amber liquid for a moment, then knocks it back in one swallow. He leans forward to set his glass down on the coffee table and then rests his forearms on his knees. The compass has emerged from his pocket again, and he turns it over in his hands, gazing down at it.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Steve?” you ask softly.

He’s silent for a long moment, and you wait patiently. Most of the time, the right words come so easily to him—you’ve witnessed enough of his pre-battle speeches to know first-hand how articulate he can be. But you also know that when it comes to anything personal, it takes him a long time to express himself, and even then, he’s a man of few words. 

“I was thinking about what might’ve happened if I never went into the ice,” he says at last, staring resolutely down at his compass. “If I’d been able to get out of that plane, survive the end of the war. Make that date I missed.”

Your heart clenches at his words, at the thought of him happily living out his days with the woman he loves, at the idea of the present without him, but you stay silent. 

“I know it’s useless to dwell on what could have been. There’s no undoing what’s been done,” he continues, seemingly on a roll now that he’s found his voice. “She’s been able to move on and live her life. I’ll get to do the same. Most days, it’s fine. But some days, I wish…” He leaves the thought unfinished and shakes his head. “How can you miss something you never had to begin with?”

The ache in your chest deepens and expands as you watch him. His face gives little away about the emotions he is no doubt trying to suppress, but there’s a trace of sorrow in the faint lines on his forehead and the set of his jaw. You want to take this pain from him, but you know that’s not within your power. There is nothing you can offer him that will fill the void left by seventy years in the ice or make up for the loss of his chance with the love of his life. All you can give him is the knowledge that he’s not alone.

“I know the specifics of your situation are unique, but that feeling…” You trail off and stare down at the liquor in your glass. “I think a lot of people have gotten lost dreaming about something they could never have. Myself included.”

“Yeah?” he asks, turning his head to look at you.

You lean forward to set your glass down on the coffee table, unable to meet his eyes. His unflinching honesty makes it difficult for you to lie to him. “There’s someone I met a while ago,” you say slowly, hesitantly, as you clasp your hands and lean your forearms on your knees, echoing his posture. “But he’s in love with someone else.” 

“I’m sorry.” His voice is so sincere, so sympathetic, and he is so clearly oblivious to the fact that you’re talking about him that you have a sudden urge to laugh at the irony. 

Instead, you just shrug. “It is what it is,” you say with a rueful smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. “I came to terms with it a while ago. But some days it’s hard not to just… imagine all of the what-ifs.”

He nods in understanding and trains his gaze back to the compass in his hands, turning it over and over in his fingers. You reach out and place a gentle hand on his wrist, and his movements still.

“It’s understandable if you feel a little lost and lonely sometimes, Steve,” you tell him, your voice barely above a whisper. “But you’re not alone.” 

You lean over and press a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek, trying to convey in this one gesture all the comfort you can offer, all the care you have for him. 

He turns his head towards you before you’re able to completely pull away, and your lips brush the corner of his mouth. To your shock, he lets out a tiny sigh at the contact and you freeze immediately, your faces so close that you can feel his breath fanning out on your cheek.

Before you can react, he closes the gap. The first touch of his lips on yours is tentative and unsure, but when a small, soft sigh of your own involuntarily escapes your mouth, his kiss grows hungrier, more confident. You’re dimly aware that he slips the compass back into his pocket before his hands come up to cup your face and draw you closer.

Even as you slide your shaking fingers over his chest and feel his answering groan reverberate into your mouth, even as he skims his hands down to your waist so he can pull you onto his lap, you know that this isn’t the moment you’ve been dreaming of. You know that this is just an expression of his loneliness, a need for connection and contact, not some grand declaration of love. But you also know that if this is what he wants from you tonight, if this is what he needs—you can’t and won’t refuse him. 

He gets to his feet, bringing you with him, and the two of you manage to stumble to your bedroom. From there, it’s a blur of shedding clothes and the thrill of skin on skin. If it hadn’t already been obvious that he’s been starved of intimacy and affection, you feel it in the almost greedy desperation of his hands and mouth as they roam your body, in the groans that emanate from deep within him as you reciprocate in kind. You revel in the feeling of his hard, muscular body moving over you, the sensation of his hot breath on your skin, the way he so easily coaxes moans from you with every touch. 

You gasp when he finally slides into you, but even as every movement of his hips drives you higher towards the peak, a part of you notices through the haze of pleasure that he has avoided looking into your eyes this entire time. That same part of you makes you bite down on your lip to stop yourself from crying out his name when you finally fall off the edge. He follows you closely afterwards, with a low moan that starts to form itself around a word until he buries his face into your neck to silence it. And as you cling to him through the shuddering aftershocks, you have a moment of clarity: it wasn’t your name that had threatened to fall from his lips. It wasn’t you that he’d been thinking about.

The realisation stings, but as he collapses beside you and gathers you up in his arms, you’re ashamed to realise that you don’t care. If this is all you can ever hope for from him, then you’ll take what you can get.

* * * * *

When you wake up, you find him sitting hunched over at the edge of the bed, fully clothed. As you slowly sit up, he turns his head towards you, though not enough to fully face you.

“Hey,” you say tentatively. From your position, you can only see part of his face, but his remorse is practically palpable.

“I shouldn’t have done this,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Steve, it’s okay,” you try to reassure him, pulling the sheets up around you. “There’s nothing for you to apologise for. It wasn’t all you—I let it happen, too.” 

“Doesn’t make it right.” The raw regret in his voice jump-starts that familiar ache in your chest. 

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” you try to point out. “We’re both single, consenting adults.” 

He doesn’t say anything, but you see his jaw tighten as he looks down. You carefully move towards him until you’re close enough to see that he’s got his compass in his hands again. Immediately, it feels like a hand wraps around your heart and squeezes. You realise it’s not just regret he’s feeling—it’s guilt. 

Trying to assuage it, you tell him softly, “You didn’t take advantage of me, or use me, or anything like that. I knew what was happening, and I knew what I was doing.”

He remains silent, but you think you see the tension in his shoulders ease just slightly. Encouraged, you continue, fighting down the urge to reach out and touch him. 

“We’re not perfect, Steve. We’re just… human. Last night we were both feeling lonely and vulnerable, but for a little while, we got to have some respite from all of that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding a bit of comfort in each other. That’s all it was.”

He finally looks over at you, and you’re relieved to see that some of the self-reproach has faded from his expression. The fist around your heart eases up a little. You give him a tentative smile, and after a pause, he returns it with a fleeting, muted one of his one. 

It’s quiet for a moment, and then he stands up, slipping the compass into his pocket. “I should probably go,” he says, and you wonder how his smile can be simultaneously so beautiful and so sad. 

You nod, swallowing down the inexplicable lump that has risen in your throat. “Okay.”

He walks to your bedroom door, and as you watch him walk away from you, you are seized with a sudden, selfish impulse.

“Steve?” 

He pauses and turns around. “Yeah?”

“If you want this to be a one-time thing, then that’s fine. We can just forget about it, act like it never happened. But…” You trail off and bite your lip as you it dawns on you how colossally stupid this idea actually is. You shake your head. “Never mind.”

“But what?”

You gaze at him for a moment, drinking in his painfully handsome features, remembering how his body felt pressed against yours, and the pang of longing that shoots through you carries the words out of your mouth. “I know that both of us want things that are basically impossible. So if neither of us can have what we really want, then… why can’t we have this?” You gesture between the two of you. 

A crease forms between his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” 

You wrap your arms around your knees. “What if last night doesn’t have to be a one-time thing?” you ask, plucking nervously at the sheet. “What if we can keep finding a little comfort in each other when we need it, no strings attached?” 

At first he stares at you, uncomprehending, and then his eyebrows shoot up as he realises what you’re proposing. He takes in a breath and releases it as a quiet huff, clearly weighing up exactly what to say to you.

“Look, Steve, there are no obligations here,” you rush on before he can respond. “I’m just… offering. You can take it or leave it. We don’t have to talk about any of this again. But if you ever need an escape…” You press your lips together and meet his eyes, falling into that ocean of blue, letting it drown out the logical part of you that’s whispering that this is a terrible idea. “You know where to find me.”

He holds your gaze, but you can’t tell what he’s thinking. And after a long moment, he simply nods, gives you that soft, sad smile again, and walks out of the room. You’re left alone in your bed with nothing but the memory of his body against yours and a dull ache in your heart.

* * * * *

True to your word, you act like that night never happened, treating Steve as your friend in exactly the same way you always have. It’s surprisingly easy—you’ve hidden your feelings from him and everyone else in your life for so long already that it’s practically second nature. You’ve become particularly adept at ignoring distracting thoughts about him, and it’s a skill that comes in handy when the memories of your night together threaten to derail your train of thought and disrupt your concentration.

Steve acts no differently towards you either, but sometimes you catch him watching you with a pensive look in his eyes, a look that he smooths away as soon as he realises you’ve seen it. You don’t dare to ask him about it, afraid of further disrupting the equilibrium between you. At this point, you’re just thankful that he hasn’t become completely awkward with you and that things are basically back to normal. 

You have zero expectations that he will take you up on your offer. He seemed so torn up about sleeping with you in the first place; you can’t imagine him being able to untangle his emotions enough to be comfortable with coming back for more. And as the days pass into weeks, you accept that it’s definitely not going to happen again. You content yourself with the thought that at least you got to have that one night with him, that one chance to experience what it might be like to be his, as messy and imperfect as it was.

And then late one night after a particularly gruelling mission, just as you’re finally getting ready for bed, there’s a knock at your door. 

Steve seems restless, almost nervous, when you open the door. You’re in your bathrobe with your hair still damp from the shower, and as his gaze flicks over you, something darkens in his eyes.

“Steve,” you greet him, confused by his demeanour. “What—”

“Did you mean what you said before?” he asks, cutting you off. “When you offered…?”

For a moment, you can only blink at him. “Yes,” you finally answer, wide-eyed, feeling a flicker of heat curl up from deep in your belly. 

He surges forward to take hold of you, and you only just manage to push the door closed behind him before his lips come crashing down on yours. You eagerly return his deep and hungry kiss, your hands fisting in his shirt, your whole body suddenly alight. He pulls away long enough to ask, “You sure this is okay?” and all you can do is nod and release a breathless “Yeah” before pulling him back down to you.

The second time is somehow more urgent and heated than the first. You have no idea what’s prompted him to seek you out or why he seems to need this so badly, but you don’t question it. You just give yourself over to it, riding the waves of your own desire until you wash up gasping for air. When it’s over, he wraps his arms around you and pulls you back against his chest, and you fall asleep feeling utterly satiated and content.

The bed is empty when you wake up, and you push down your disappointment. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, this is what you offered—a temporary reprieve, nothing more. It would have been perfectly understandable if he had left immediately after taking what he needed from you last night. The fact that he stayed long enough to hold you until you fell asleep is an unexpected gift in itself, a testament to the kind of man that he is.

He doesn’t give you long to wonder if it will ever happen again. The next knock on your door comes a week later, and then again a few nights after that. And soon, it becomes a pattern, with the unwritten rules gradually being laid out between you with each late-night encounter. 

It goes without saying that this is something clandestine between the two of you, never to be discussed with anyone else. You never acknowledge it out loud or talk about it with each other, either—he just knocks on your door late at night, mostly of his own accord but occasionally prompted by a brief message from you; you let him in; and he leaves before the morning. He always comes to your suite and you never go to his. It’s unspoken but understood that you can refuse him whenever you want, simply by leaving his knock on your door unanswered, even if you were the one to initiate in the first place. 

You never refuse him, though. You’re always too eager to experience his calloused hands on your flesh again, to taste the salt of his skin and feel the heavy press of his chest against yours. His body is a miracle, and every night that you’re given to explore it feels like a dream. He kisses you like you’re oxygen and he’s a drowning man; he touches you like your body is tethering him to the world. And at the beginning, in the ecstasy of all these overwhelming sensations, it’s easy for you to lose yourself in the thrill of being the object of his desire, to feel an almost smug satisfaction in the knowledge that you’re the one giving him the physical comfort and intimacy he so clearly craves. It might not be the deeper connection you’ve been longing for, but you don’t care. It’s better than nothing.

But as the weeks pass by, the gloss begins to fade, and you start to notice all the little things that make it painfully clear that this whole thing means something very different to him than it does to you. You notice that when he’s in your bed, he never makes eye contact with you. That while you frequently have to bite your lip to stop yourself from crying out his name, he never says a word. That even though he always holds you until you fall asleep, he’s never there when you wake up. 

The knowledge that you’re not what he truly wants begins to gnaw at you. You know that as much as his body responds to you, his heart remains beyond your grasp. When he walks into your room and smiles at you—that small, sad smile that seems to be reserved just for you and these encounters—you find yourself wishing fervently that he would associate you with more than just loss and loneliness. It hurts to be so close to him, literally wrapped up in him, knowing all the while that he’s still so far away from ever feeling the same way about you as you do about him. He’s yours in every way except the one that you really want. 

The worst part is that you can’t seem to stop. You’re so desperate for any kind of connection with him that you keep letting him take you into his arms and into your bed despite the consequences to your battered heart. You begin to dread his knock on your door, knowing that no matter how much it hurts, you’ll still open it. You hate yourself for being so weak.

But it’s only a matter of time before you reach your breaking point, and the moment arrives late one night when Steve has your arms pinned above your head and your legs wrapped around his waist. Your body is already drawn as taut as a bow from the rhythm of his hips, when he suddenly leans in and captures your lips in an unusually tender kiss. As he draws back, your eyelids flutter open, and suddenly you’re drowning in the stormy depths of his blue eyes. 

It only lasts for a couple of seconds before he drops his face down to your neck, but the fleeting eye contact is enough to crack your heart wide open and send you flying off the precipice, his name tumbling out of your mouth before you can stop it. 

You feel his answering moan vibrate through him with the final stutter of his hips, and as you both gasp for air, trembling, tears begin to prick at the back of your eyes. After a long moment, he releases your wrists and rolls to the side to pull you into his arms, pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder. A dull, hollow ache begins to spread through your chest, and you squeeze your eyes shut to prevent the tears from spilling over onto your cheeks.

You have to end this. You keep giving him what he needs and taking what you can get, but you’ll never have what you really want. You want your name on his lips and his eyes looking into yours. You want him smiling at you without that sadness on his face. You want him seeking you out for more than just a night of physical comfort. You want to be more than just his consolation prize. 

The longer this goes on, the more your heart breaks—and if you don’t stop now, it’s going to shatter completely.

* * * * *

Three nights later, you’re brooding over a glass of scotch on your sofa when you hear Steve’s soft knock. Without thinking, you set down your glass and walk over to the door. It’s not until you already have your hand on the doorknob that you remember you promised yourself that the last time was the _last time_.

You freeze in place. You have no doubt that he knows you’re standing there—he would have heard your movements, and he can surely see your shadow under the door. It would be so easy to open the door to him, to just forget your pain and your pride and let him walk in and kiss you again. A large part of you is crying out for you to do just that. You close your eyes and draw a deep breath, trying to galvanise yourself against the temptation.

He knocks again, a little louder this time, making you jump. With a shaky breath, you release the doorknob and allow your hand drop to your side. For a while you stand there, trying not to move or make a sound, waiting until you can hear his footsteps slowly walking away down the hall. You let out a long sigh, leaning forward to briefly rest your head against the door. Your chest feels tight from the mix of emotions swirling through you: relief, regret, and the dull ache of loneliness.

You’ve just slumped back down on the sofa and picked up your glass when your phone buzzes, signalling a new text message from Steve. 

_You alright?_

You take a long sip of scotch. You’d wanted to avoid any form of this conversation altogether, but you should have known that he would follow up. He’s not the kind of man who likes to leave things unfinished.

You type out: _I’m fine… but I think we should stop doing this._

It feels like an age before his reply comes through—long enough for you to drain your glass and pour yourself a second. 

_Is that what you want?_

You bite your lip, your thumb hovering over the screen. _Is_ this what you want? To end this arrangement altogether and cut off the possibility of ever coming undone in his arms again? Flashes of your previous nights together come back to you unbidden, and some dark, selfish part of you whispers that it’s not too late to just say _Never mind, come over now_. It’s not too late to let go of your resolve and lose yourself once more in the pure physical pleasure of being with him. 

But you know that’s not enough any more. 

You swallow down a little more liquid courage and finally send back, _It’s what I need._

His response is quick this time, and with one word you know it’s over: _OK._

Your lips twist into a bitter smile. Part of you is disappointed that he didn’t try to change your mind—but then, he wouldn’t be the man you fell for if he didn’t respect your decisions. You drain the dregs from your glass and place it with your phone on the coffee table. With a sigh, you curl up and reach for the television remote, ready for something inane and mindless to drown out the chatter in your head and the ache in your heart.

* * * * *

It figures that your first mission after ending things with Steve is one that you have to work alone with him. It’s not that much of a problem—after all, you managed just fine while you were still sleeping together—but there’s a slightly different energy between you now that puts you on edge. There is nothing different in the way he speaks to you, but it feels like he’s always watching you, examining you like you’re a puzzle he’s trying to solve. You know that he’s probably wondering about the reason why you ended things—he’s never liked being kept out of the loop, and you still haven’t given him any kind of explanation. But the scrutiny makes you nervous, like he might somehow detect the buried truth of your feelings for him just from the force of his piercing gaze. It all makes for a strangely tense and awkward working atmosphere.

“I thought this guy was meeting you at ten,” Steve’s voice sounds in your ear through your comms.

“Calm down, Steve. It’s not like you’ve never been late before,” you mutter as you run a hand through your hair, not bothering to turn around from your seat at the bar where you’re waiting for your INTERPOL contact. You can feel his eyes on you from across the room, where he’s positioned to keep an eye on the exits and the street outside.

“You sure he’s still coming?”

You roll your eyes. “If you’re getting bored, you can go wait for me back at the jet. I don’t need you hovering anyway. Cameron’s an old friend, not a threat.”

“Just because _he’s_ not a threat, doesn’t mean there aren’t any others around. You can never be too careful.”

You don’t bother responding. He’s got a point, after all—the two of you had already spotted and narrowly avoided a couple of known HYDRA operatives when you arrived in Lyon earlier, so you know that there are enemies wandering around somewhere, just waiting for an opportunity. You’re sure that the two of you have done a good job of being discreet, and you probably could have handled this meeting by yourself while Steve prepared for the next step of the mission, but he’s never been one to leave his teammates’ safety to chance.

You’re checking your watch again when Steve warns “White male, brown hair, blue jacket, on your six,” and a few seconds later you feel a hand on the small of your back. You tense immediately, your own hand curling automatically into a fist.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Cameron’s familiar voice murmurs in your ear, and you instantly relax.

“Cam, hi,” you greet him with a broad smile. He leans in to press a kiss to each cheek and slides smoothly into the seat next to you. “I was starting to wonder if you’d stood me up.”

“I got stuck on a call with the CIA,” he explains apologetically. “How long do we have before you need to go?”

“Just long enough for half a drink.”

He grins and takes the hint, flagging down the bartender. In perfect French, he orders a couple of old fashioneds. 

“So you remember,” you remark, one corner of your lips rising as you watch the bartender prepare the cocktails.

“I remember a lot of things about you.” 

If you were a different kind of woman, his tone and the significant look he gives you might have made you blush, but you just change the subject as the bartender slides the drinks across the bar. “I’m sorry about what happened with you and Georgina.”

“Are you?” Cameron raises a sceptical eyebrow. “You never liked her. You didn’t even come to the wedding.”

“You know Fury sent me to Morocco that weekend,” you point out. “And I can still be sorry about what happened, even if I didn’t like her.”

“You should’ve done more to warn me back then,” he says with a sidelong glance at you. “Might have saved me some heartbreak.”

“You loved her, Cam,” you remind him softly, shaking your head. “You wouldn’t have listened.”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, shifting to angle his body towards you. “I guess it doesn’t really matter now. She’s gone, and now here we are.” He raises his glass to you. “To fresh starts.”

“To fresh starts,” you echo with a smile, clinking your glass against his. 

You spend the next fifteen minutes catching up, carefully skirting around the edges of potentially compromising details using the old shorthand from your S.H.I.E.L.D days. It’s easy and comfortable, just like old times—a welcome change from the awkwardness you’d been feeling since you boarded the jet with Steve—and you’re just beginning to enjoy yourself when Steve’s voice interrupts in your ear: “You need to wrap this up. We don’t have all night.”

The smile fades a little from your face and you stifle a sigh, taking a sip of your drink as you steal a discreet glance at your watch. Cameron gives you a knowing look and a very slight nod. He surreptitiously pulls something from his pocket and then places his hand on your thigh. You can feel the small flash drive against your leg underneath his palm. 

“I know this isn’t a purely social visit,” he says, holding your gaze. “But I’m glad to see you anyway. Even if it is just for half a drink.”

You place your hand over his, smiling softly. “Me too.” 

He draws his hand away, leaving the flash drive behind, and you curl your fingers around it.

“This is everything you’ve got?” you ask in a low voice.

“Everything on the databases,” he confirms quietly. “Should help you track your man down.”

You smile at him as you slip the drive discreetly into your purse. “Thank you.” You glance briefly at your watch again and your smile turns apologetic. “I wish I didn’t have to cut this short, but…”

“It’s fine, I get it,” he says, waving dismissively. The corner of his lips twitches up as he points at your half-empty glass. “But sometime soon, you’re gonna have to let me buy you the other half of that drink.”

“I will,” you promise with a grin. You lean forward to kiss him goodbye on both cheeks, your lips lingering a little on the second. “Bye, Cam.”

You spare Steve a fleeting glance as you walk past him on your way out, and the expression on his face makes you frown slightly. It’s difficult to decipher, but it reminds you of the sad smiles he used to give you when he walked into your suite late at night, the look he’d get on his face right before he took hold of you and kissed you. As you head towards the rendezvous point where you’d arranged to meet him once he made sure you weren’t being followed, you shiver a little and wrap your arms around your body. You’re not sure if it’s because of the cool night air or the unexpected pang of regret that shoots through your heart.

* * * * *

The rest of the mission passes relatively uneventfully. You manage to leave Lyon without any encounters with HYDRA, and you get Cameron’s data uploaded and sent back to Maria on the way to Salzburg. The small HYDRA base you and Steve are supposed to clear out there turns out to be not quite as empty as the intelligence had suggested it would be, but the few operatives there are no match for the two of you together. It doesn’t take too long to take down the hostiles, clear out the base and load the weapons and equipment onto the jet.

Now that the work is done and you’re finally on your way home, you let yourself relax. Steve seems to be deep in thought, and you assume that he’s running through all the things the two of you will need to do when you land, as usual. You close your eyes and tip your head back against the headrest of the jumpseat, intending to take a nap and leave him to his post-mission planning.

“I’m happy for you, you know,” his voice suddenly breaks into the silence.

You open your eyes and look over at him, but he’s staring straight ahead, ostensibly focusing on piloting the jet. “Happy for me?” you echo, confusion creasing your forehead.

“You know. You and Cameron.”

You sit up straighter. “What are you talking about?”

He glances at you with that look on his face again, the one you caught as you were leaving the bar in Lyon—a slight smile on his lips, but a strange kind of resignation in his eyes. Your stomach gives a small involuntary lurch.

“He’s the guy you told me about, isn’t he?” he asks, turning back to the windshield.

It takes you a moment to understand what he means, but when the penny drops you can’t help the burst of incredulous laughter that bubbles out of you. “What? No. Cam’s just a friend.”

“You sure about that?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He shrugs. “At the bar, it seemed like you were… reconnecting.”

“Well, yeah. Because we’re old friends,” you explain slowly, deliberately. 

“You sure that’s all you are?” He glances at you with a raised eyebrow and you roll your eyes. 

“Okay, so when we worked together we used to flirt a little,” you concede with a dismissive shrug. “And there was one night after a mission when I kissed him, because I’d been drugged and I was still a little out of it—” Steve looks sharply at you, but you ignore him. “—But Cam is definitely _not_ the guy I told you about,” you finish firmly. You meet his eyes and find yourself adding more softly, “That entire situation is still exactly the same as it was before.”

“I thought…” He shakes his head, his brow furrowed, turning to face forward again. “Never mind.”

“You thought what?” you ask, staring at his profile. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, but the tightness of his jaw suggests that whatever it is, it’s making him uncomfortable.

“I thought that you and I…” He trails off a little awkwardly, throwing a quick glance your way. “I thought you ended things because your mystery man finally came to his senses.”

So _that’s_ what that look on his face had meant. He thought he’d figured you out, solved the puzzle, worked out the explanation for your sudden decision to stop sleeping with him. 

You expel a mirthless chuckle and turn to look out the window. Without thinking, you say in a voice tinged with bitterness, “No, Steve, the only person who came to their senses was me.”

“What do you mean?” 

You shut your eyes and stifle a frustrated sigh at yourself, inwardly cursing your stupid mouth. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

He doesn’t respond, but you can feel his eyes on you. You slouch down in your seat and resolutely keep your face turned to the window, giving off your best ‘ _I don’t want to talk about it_ ’ vibe until you’re sure he’s stopped looking at you. He doesn’t say anything more, but you sense the tension between you rising again, and you know he’s not going to let it go. It’s only a matter of time before he asks you outright for a proper explanation.

You have no idea what you’ll say when he does. You know that the truth will irreparably change the dynamics between you—but you also know that if you look directly into those perfect blue eyes, you won’t be able to lie to him.

* * * * *

Thankfully, when you land back at the Tower, you’re both kept busy enough that there are no immediate opportunities for Steve to discuss anything alone with you. While he helps Tony bring the HYDRA weapons and equipment you retrieved from the Salzburg base down to the lab, you and Maria go through her analysis of the information Cameron had given you. She’s been able to trace through some patterns that the team will be able to extrapolate and follow through, and you spend some time with her working out some rough options for the next few missions, pending whatever additional intelligence she can gather.

When you finally finish up and head to your suite, you find Steve leaning against the wall next to your door with his arms folded across his chest, still wearing his uniform.

“What are you doing?” you ask cautiously, your heart beginning to beat a little faster. 

“Can we talk?”

You regard him for a moment, pressing your lips together. He looks serious, his handsome face touched with the faint sadness you’ve come to associate with his interactions with you, and something twists inside your gut. Without responding, you open your door and walk into your suite, leaving him to follow you inside and shut the door behind him. You immediately head towards the sideboard—you know what he wants to discuss, and you’re not going to be able to get through it without a drink.

“You want one?” you ask as you pour a few fingers of scotch into your glass. 

“No, thanks.” 

You take a long sip with your back to the room, trying to steel your mind and your heart for the pending conversation. He’s already sitting on your sofa when you finally turn around, and you walk over to join him, careful not to sit too close.

He doesn’t waste any time. “You said on the jet that you ended things between us because you came to your senses,” he says soberly. “What did you mean?”

“Steve. Come on,” you sigh, trying one last-ditch effort to dissuade him from probing further. “Do we really need to talk about this? We slept together for a while, and then we stopped. We said no strings. Does it really matter why it ended?”

“It does to me,” he says quietly, pinning you with that piercing blue gaze. “Did I… do something wrong? Did I hurt you?”

There is so much concern and misplaced guilt in his eyes that you have to look away. You feel a stab of guilt yourself as you realise you’ve inadvertently led him to believe he was somehow at fault. The honest truth is that yes, he did hurt you, but not in any way that he could have known about. Not in any way he could have controlled. 

“I know it’s a cliché, but please believe me when I say that it wasn’t you. It was me,” you tell him sincerely, staring down at the liquid in your glass. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“So what changed?” he asks, ducking his head slightly in an effort to try and catch your eye. “I thought it was what you wanted.”

You glance at him, and the moment his eyes meet yours, the old familiar ache blossoms in your chest. You take another sip of scotch to try and chase the sensation away, but it just settles and spreads. 

“It was,” you admit, your voice coming out strained and small through the barrage of emotions sweeping through you. “And it was fine, for a while. But I just… I couldn’t be your consolation prize any more.”

“Consolation prize?” he repeats, sitting up straighter, sounding confused and perturbed.

“What else could I have been to you?” you ask heavily, turning away and leaning forward to set your nearly-empty glass on the coffee table. “Can you honestly tell me that’s not how this whole thing started? That when you kissed me that night, you actually wanted _me_? That you weren’t wishing you could be with Peggy?”

When you turn your head to look at him, you catch a trace of pain in his eyes. You bite your lip. “I’m not saying this to hurt you,” you say softly, tentatively. “I just—” 

“What about you?” Steve says abruptly, cutting you off. “Weren’t you doing the same thing with me?”

You’re a little taken aback by the touch of steel in his deep voice. “No, I… It wasn’t…” You stumble over your words, flustered by the directness of his question and his unwavering gaze. 

He seems upset somehow, maybe even a little hurt. You don’t understand why he’s reacting this way, but seeing him like this raises a lump in your throat. You swallow it down as you pull one leg up onto the sofa and wrap your arms around your knee.

“It wasn’t the same for me,” you confess at last, staring at the coffee table. “Everything I told you that night about wanting something I couldn’t have—that was all true. But…” You dart a fleeting glance at him. “I wasn’t talking about someone else. I was talking about you.”

You hear him release a deep breath in the stillness of the room, and from the corner of your eye you see him lean forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, but you can’t bring yourself to turn your head to look at him properly. One more look into those blue eyes might wreck you completely.

“I know that you were just coming to me because you were lonely and you needed some kind of physical comfort,” you continue quietly before he has a chance to speak. “And at first, I really thought I could settle for that. But after a while, it just hurt too much, knowing that you’re never going to feel the same way about me.”

There’s a long pause before he says in a low voice, “You seem pretty sure that you’ve got me figured out.”

“Well, I’m right, aren’t I?” you ask dully, drawing your knee a little closer to your chest. “Peggy’s the love of your life. I was just the consolation prize.”

“You need to stop saying that. You were never a consolation prize,” Steve says with surprising forcefulness. It startles you enough to look over at him. You can’t quite name the expression on his face, but his brow is furrowed and his jaw is clenched, and you feel your chest tighten as he turns his head to hold your gaze. 

“Peggy will always mean a lot to me,” he continues, both his voice and face softening as he speaks. “But she’s part of my past. And I can’t spend my whole life looking back. Not when there’s so much here for me in the present.”

Your eyebrows draw together in confusion, but the look he’s giving you lights a spark in your chest. Your grip on your leg slackens and you bring your foot back down to the floor. “What are you saying?”

“You’re right about how things started between us,” he admits, shifting slightly to angle his body towards you. “But after a few nights, it wasn’t about loneliness or comfort for me any more. And it wasn’t just physical.” His eyes search yours, so earnest and tender, and your heart begins to pound faster. “I kept coming back because I just… wanted to be with you. However that looked. Whatever that meant.”

His words fan the spark into a flame that seems to suck the oxygen from your lungs. You can hardly believe what you’re hearing, what you’re seeing in his face. It doesn’t match up with the reality you’ve been living in these past few months. 

“But… when we were together, you never said anything.” Your voice sounds as bewildered as you feel. “You didn’t even make eye contact with me. You were always gone before morning.”

“All you offered was something casual,” Steve points out. “I thought that’s what you wanted. It didn’t seem right to show you how I felt or try for something more when you hadn’t put anything like that on the table as an option.” The corner of his lips twitches into a rueful half-smile. “And I thought you were in love with someone else anyway.”

“I wasn’t,” you say weakly, staring at him with wide eyes.

“I know that now.” His half-smile extends into a full one, small and wry. 

You draw a shaky breath. “So you’re telling me that all this time… you’ve had feelings for me?” 

He nods slowly. “Yeah.”

You suddenly notice how close he is, the two of you having been drawn together almost unconsciously throughout the conversation. He holds you captive in his gaze. Your heart is thudding so fast and loud that you’re certain he can hear it. The flame in your chest has burst into a roaring fire and it feels like you might burn up completely from the force of it.

He begins to lean in, but as his head inclines towards you and the blue of his eyes fills your vision, you can’t help whispering your lingering doubts. 

“Steve, are you sure? Is this—am _I_ —really what you want?”

“You need me to prove it?” he murmurs with a crooked smile.

Before you can answer, his lips meet yours. Your eyes drift closed and you melt against him, shivers racing up and down your spine as you reach up and grab onto his shoulders. He tastes just like you remember, but he’s never kissed you like this before: so soft and sweet and tender, like you’re something delicate and precious. He lifts one hand to your cheek, gently drawing you closer as he deepens the kiss, and the first touch of his tongue to yours has you whimpering. 

His other hand takes hold of yours and draws it down to his chest. You flatten your palm against him, tracing the edges of the star on his uniform under your thumb. Slowly, he slides your hand down his torso, down to the pouch on the left side of his belt where you know he keeps his compass. With one deft movement, he opens the pouch and slips your fingers inside. 

It’s empty.

You immediately break the kiss and lean back, staring at him in wonder. He gives you a soft, lopsided smile, and in his face you see a reflection of the constellation of your own emotions. It’s desire and longing, tenderness and honesty, affection and adoration. It’s everything you thought he’d never feel for you, swirling in the depths of those perfect blue eyes. 

“When did you stop carrying it?” you breathe, wide-eyed, withdrawing your fingers from the pouch to trail them back up to his shoulder. 

“A couple of months ago,” he confesses, taking hold of your waist to pull you closer. "When I realised that I wanted to hang onto every moment with you more than I wanted to live in the past.”

The smile blossoming across your face could rival the sun. He returns it with one that’s just as dazzling, and you pull him towards you for another long, delicious kiss. When you finally part for air, your smile takes on a suggestive edge as your right hand toys with the star on his chest and your left hand travels back down to the empty pouch on his belt. 

“Does it really prove anything, though?” you ask him, tilting your head and raising an eyebrow. “You have a lot of other pockets in this uniform.”

He catches on immediately, and a smouldering heat rises in his eyes. “You need to pat me down to make sure?” The look on his face is downright sinful. 

“Well,” you smirk, tugging gently on his belt. “You can never be too careful, Captain.”

Without another word, he abruptly stands, scoops you up, and marches off towards your bedroom. And as you wind your arms around his neck, laughing, you notice with a fluttering in your heart that there is no trace of sadness in his smile any more.

* * * * *

You had thought that you already knew what it was like to be the focus of Steve’s passion, but you quickly find that your past encounters with him pale in comparison to this one. Before, there had always been a tinge of melancholy in the way he touched you—a feeling you had previously attributed to his longing for the life he couldn’t live, but that you now know was born from the misunderstanding that you didn’t share his feelings. But now, there’s nothing but desire and exhilaration and _delight_ between you. You had no idea how much he had been holding back until this moment.

He peels your tac suit off your body slowly, taking his time to unwrap you like a gift, his eyes greedily drinking in every inch of exposed skin. His calloused hands and kiss-swollen lips move over you with a reverence that borders on worship, leaving you trembling and breathless. He laughs when you manage to flip you both over so that you can clamber on top of him, the smile staying on his face even through his groan at the nip of your teeth on his earlobe and the journey of your fingers over every line and divot of his torso. 

When he finally enters you, he breathes your name hotly into your ear, causing you to choke on a ragged moan. As he starts to move, he softly commands you to look at him, and the moment you do, his blue eyes bore straight into yours, overwhelming you. He holds his gaze steady through each powerful snap of his hips. It feels like he’s staring right into the very essence of you, seeing you for everything that you are, and it brings you spiralling to the peak faster than you ever thought possible. 

You throw your head back, keening out his name as waves of pleasure crash over you. At the sound of your voice, he emits a low growl and leans in to cover your mouth with his, swallowing your sobs of ecstasy, his movements never slowing. You do your best to hold on and meet his pace, and he groans against your mouth, the deep rumbling sound shaping itself around your name. The coil of tension inside of you begins to wind tight again as he draws back and pins you with that intense gaze once more. 

With a final driving thrust of his hips, you come undone all over again, and a second later you feel him shatter apart as well, your name falling like a strangled prayer from his lips. You cling to him tightly, both of you shuddering, sweaty, and thoroughly sated. You raise a trembling hand to gently caress his cheek, and he kisses you, long and soft and sweet, before collapsing beside you.

For a long minute, you lie boneless next to him, taking the time to catch your breath and allow your body to come back to earth. When you slowly sit up and swing your legs off the side of the bed, Steve’s arm immediately shoots out and he catches your hand. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, peering up at you with heavy-lidded eyes, his voice low and rough.

The tiny hint of possessiveness in his tone makes you smile. “Just the bathroom,” you assure him, squeezing his hand. “I’ll be quick.” 

When you return, he has his eyes closed, one hand resting on his abdomen and the other arm thrown up over his head. He looks relaxed and satisfied, a faint smile playing about his lips. The smile grows warmer when you slip into the bed next to him, snuggle into his side, and drape your leg over his with a contented sigh.

“Everything good?” he asks sleepily as he brings his arm down around you, gathering you in even closer.

“Nearly perfect,” you answer softly, tracing lazy patterns on his chest with your index finger.

“ _Nearly_ perfect?” he queries, moving his head so he can better see your face. 

You smile, looking up at him through your lashes. “If you’re still holding me when I wake up, I’ll retract the ‘nearly’.”

He puts his fingers under your chin, tilting your head up further so that he can press a languorous kiss to your lips.

“Believe me,” he murmurs. “I have no plans to let go.”

In the morning, you’re roused to consciousness by Steve’s lips ghosting over your shoulder, his chest pressed against your back and his arms a comforting weight around you. And as you smile and roll over to kiss him, you finally accept that you’re not his consolation prize—you’re just his.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone’s interested, the two songs I listened to a lot while writing this fic were ['Fade Into You' by Mazzy Star](https://youtu.be/avv2IIdDnnk) (for the vibe), and ['Let Go' by Dean Lewis](https://youtu.be/PdP--EzeVuE) (for Steve's perspective).


End file.
